Yikes! The year is almost over and I have done so little!
That’s a lie. Since the start of this school year at least, I’ve applied to several internships and jobs in the publishing and agenting world, revised old stories and submitted them for reprint publication in several magazines and journals, graded a looot of papers, internally screamed at the world for getting lazy and abusing the invention of AI/LLMs, and written a new story as well as made some more progress in my novel despite the demands of work and distractions of my new neighbors.
The new story is still a bit fresh so it may still need some editing before I decide what to do with the final draft. I realized this year that I need to not self-publish every story I write right away. Many stories I’ve written, I either put on Instagram due to them being a writing challenge (don’t look there now. I’m very upset that today I am not finishing those challenges), or I put on my website a while back as more of a worldbuilding exploration. In doing this, I barred myself from being able to submit to many actual journals unless they accept “reprints” which also means less priority and less possible payment if they find that my writing is any good. XD So, I’m trying to pause before sharing now.
That being said, I have reached the “hard part” of my draft 12 revision for my first novel. The beginning portions were more “hey, fix the pacing and tension levels” (which I hope I didn’t screw up more!), and this last half is more “Hey, the climax is actually this part, not that part. That part should build tension and focus for this part. Also, that part has way too much new information going on and you need to make it less hectic (erase certain truth bombs and rework the whole plot twist).” So yeah. Hopefully the upcoming Christmas Break will give me time to focus on all that.
Speaking of being busy and Christmastime, I recently got to go see Trans Siberian Orchestra for my birthday! I used to go every year when I was in high school and have every album they’ve made. At the concert, I was not only the weirdo mouthing the lyrics to every song, but also playing air piano because TSO is actually what inspired me to learn piano! It had been a while since I’d been to a concert, but I was glad to see my favorite band members still out there having fun, despite how many years they’ve been doing these same songs.
I was a little disappointed that it was a compilation story instead of a full story (my favorite Christmas album is The Lost Christmas Eve but my favorite song is Old City Bar which is on a different album, though it needs no explanation to carry its full weight). They did play songs from The Lost Christmas Eve and I had to lean over to my friend and explain to him the actual significance of their version of What Child is This? in the story where it belongs. Yes, I’m that person. XD
We had to leave early because of reasons, so I didn’t get to see if they did anything with dueling pianos or if they played Old City Bar (the live performance of it is always really special), but I did get to see them do a tribute to their founder, Paul O’Neill, who was and remains to be one of my artistic idols. He had a theory about “great art” that I found profound at the time and though I have critiques about it now, I still strive for the heart of what he was saying. I also still think about his “idea of hell” being “where you meet the person you could have been.” What a haunting, yet intriguing concept.
On the note of the dueling pianos, I had been zooming in on my phone a lot, trying to figure out who was playing them throughout the concert. The last concert I had gone to, I got to take my siblings with me. They weren’t super into TSO, but they quickly spotted one of their own idols, Vitalij Kuprij, on the stage. After this concert, I was sad to find out that last year he passed away and so that’s why I couldn’t spot him at either set of keyboards this year. I’m sure they still did the dueling pianos, but I would have loved to stay long enough to hear if they said anything for him as well.
All that being said, I still wish/hope they will eventually do a summer tour again. I would love to see them perform their non-Christmas albums live someday. The album that introduced me to the band was Night Castle, and I know in the past they did a tour for Beethoven’s Last Night, which would have been amazing to see (I love that Andrew Ross was cast as Fate’s son, Twist). However, I think that may not happen for a long while, since the band and crew probably prefers to live their lives and work on other projects during the not-Christmas-time. This, I understand completely.
Finally, I’ll segue from that to my own personal projects and the end of a year! I’ll have to think about what resolution theme I’ll have for next year. If I don’t finish revising this draft of my novel before the school year ends, I hope I’ll have time during the summer to focus on it. Having to have full time jobs makes it much harder to balance personal projects, health, and a social life together. I miss being a student and getting away with writing because everyone thought I was just doing homework! Well, I guess everything happens in its own time. Perhaps next year I will write more short stories. Perhaps I will take a swing dance class, fall in love, and practice drawing more while running out of audiobook credits every month. We’ll see where the next phase of life takes me.
Happy Christmas! Hyvää Juolua! Feliz Navidad! Fröliche Weihnachten! I don’t know other languages!
To those who celebrate other things, Happy Hannukah! Happy Kwanzaa (which I just learned is not part of any religion, but is rather a cultural celebration)!
May you find warmth inside and out this month. ❤
N. K. Valek: Author 